Age verification

How are they forcing you? It's not "Ilegal" and it's not forceful. This is completely optional.
They've never said different. What are they lying about?

I'm serious. You can still play SL pretty much exactly as it is now, except for certain places flagged as Adult. They're not forcing you to do anything. Nothing at all.

Second Life is a Service, provided by LL. They own it. They can do what they want with it. using that service is not some sort of entitlement, as some seem to think. They could turn around tomorrow and do away with all free accounts and make everyone pay to use it. Whatever they decide to do in this matter, we are free to walk away and seek entertainment elsewhere.

Yeah, Nobody is forcing you to have a house either. Beats living on the street, but no, you don't *need* a house to survive. Would be *great* to have a nice roof to sleep under, but no, nobody is forcing you to spend the money to get a house.

I still want to know why an "adult" game is divvied up into "Adult" "Mature" and "Parental Guidance (WTF?)" areas to begin with.

how will people cope with the withdrawal symptoms when Second Life ends? use the GTA: Hot Coffee patch like a Nicorette?

SL isn't going to die, not yet atleast, it's just going to lose a massive chunk of it's population because it's not a game anymore.

I liked it better when the focus was on flexprims and sculpties and making Second Life a Second Life instead of trying to fuse First Life with Second Life (Wtf, Voice chat? Who asked for that? Imput your SSN to enter this area? wtf...)

When it comes to Second Life. In one way or anther people favert saying tends to be lets keep first life first life.... and second life second life....

it no fun mixing the two..... and to much drama.

So don't ask for my personal info it bad enough I gave you my critit card... what more do you want my first born child... and no your not getting my soul eather.

That ones easy -

They never planend on having "The Metaverse" stay 18+ forever.

That's obvious, the money is with the stupid kids with expendable income - The problem is why have teen second life, then.

What? You're comparing a video game with a place to live? Seriously?
You honestly believe that's a legitimate comparison?

I think you may be taking the definition of PG a bit too literally. But keep on playing semantics.

Two things can happen with the next push
A) 90% of the game switches to Adult flagged land or
B) Nobody uses the verification system and it falls into disuse, with little patches of flagged land here and there

If you want to look deeper into my comparison then I intended then go right ahead.

that was part of the plan all along

And thats why they made a Teen Second Life.

Some said it then

If you buy this internet 2 theory then the grids will someday merge, prolly years a way tho. (I hope)

From the Official Linden Blog:

More on Identity Verification
Monday, May 7th, 2007 at 2:25 PM PDT by: daniellinden

1. "Age and identity verification will be completely voluntary."

Yes, we only need to verify if we want access to content that is in LL's words: "Content’ is that which is overtly, graphically, or explicitly sexual in nature or intensely violent.



2. "Age and identity verification will replace ‘Payment Information’ in-world....... Land owners will be free to allow or disallow access to their owned parcels based on this verified or unverified status. "

If we don't verify our ages, we will wear the same brand mark as any unverified sub-18.



SO - if this plan goes through, you will have a choice of two brands to wear.

A. Explicitly signed up to access content that is "overtly, graphically, or explicitly sexual in nature or intensely violent."

B. Not verified in any way. Could be the 100th avatar for some griefer 12-year-old.



Again:
You DON'T have to verify - Unless you want to access extreme violence and porn, and have no problem with that being obvious to the world
If you don't verify, then despite maybe years of being a Premium paying resident with whatever landholdings, art museums, community building, - you will look like any other potential newbie underaged griefer to whatever automated procedures other landowners care to implement.


I love SL. The actual and potential creativity in here is immense.
I hate it that SL is being run in this ill-considered self-destructive fashion.

I think it depends much on how the flag is named in the parcel setup window: If it says 'Parcel contains overly sexual and/or violent content', Age verification implies that you explicitly want access to that type of things. If it says 'Deny entry to non-verified avatars' the connotation of the age verification is a whole lot better.

That's entirely missing the point.

The sole purpose of the (voluntary) verification as proposed is *specifically* to gain access to content that is "overtly, graphically, or explicitly sexual in nature or intensely violent."

"Non-verified" is currently used by parcel owners to deny access to a class of avatars that they feel on balance will be unwelcome (potentially kids and/or griefers)

In the future, "Non-verified" will have a *completely different* meaning. It will mean only that the avatar does not care if it will not normally encounter content that is "overtly, graphically, or explicitly sexual in nature or intensely violent."
That's all that non-verified will mean. Nothing more. It is in no way related to the current definition of "non-verified".

The flag could say "Deny entry to pink teddy bears" in the parcel setup window, but the reality is that it will be denying access to people who have not jumped through hoops so that they can have access to extreme violence and pornography.

Read the Linden blog
"Age and identity verification will replace ‘Payment Information’ in-world....... Land owners will be free to allow or disallow access to their owned parcels based on this verified or unverified status. "


Which label/brand do YOU want to wear?
1) Looking for extreme violence and pornography
or
2) Completely unverified, and by an SL tradition, unwelcome in many decent areas.

You have a choice, but the LL proposal is that your choice is only between those two.

1) yet another reason to be bounced out of vehicles.

2) who is this ‘third party’? the FBI? what's with the secrecy?

3) there is a big difference between the last four digits of a social security number and a passport number. Looks like Linden Labs doesn’t want ‘aliens’ around anymore… and I thought San Fran was one of the more progressive cities.

4) looks like permanent residents of foreign countries cannot be verified as their passport number won’t show up as valid in the country they live in.

5) this is what dictators do to bring their citizens under control

The third party is an age/identity verification service called Integrity. Passport isn't the only option for overseas users.

The Lindens have given up more information on age/identity verification in-world. See this blog entry for details. Some of this info is very interesting .. in a good way.

I feel myself being swung more and more towards liking the idea, but it all hangs on exactly what form of ID they will require from British users. Put simply, I will not agree to certain documentation being exported outside UK jurisdiction, but even that might not be an issue because Integrity has a data centre in England.

So it isn't a cover-your-ass move by LL, it's to create trust and security.
This system will create neither.

The data being "verified" is tainted due to the fact it comes from an untrusted source. Submitting for verification in no way verifies that you are the person named in the SSN/DL/passport. Strike trust from the list.

LL are removing the option to keep out those without payment info. Payment info consists of a credit card number or verified paypal account. Due to the nature of those services, they have a lot more security in them than aristotles verification service. Fraudulent use has a higher chance of being spotted with credit cards/paypal, and legal penalties for fraudulent use serve to discourage it. Strike security from the list.

Creators of content and providers of services have no way of knowing who they are dealing with in the first place, this service does not give them any more information that can be used to identify their customers. They still wont know who they are dealing with.
Even if LL released information gained from the verification, the data is still untrustable in nature so it creates zero surety.

None of the arguments put forward by LL for this "service" make any sense. They aren't even talking about age verification anymore, but identity verification. Payment info makes a damn good identity verification, scrapping it makes no sense at all.

Out of the TWO issues being bounded about here....

Since when did Adult and Mature become seperate definitions? If I am 'Mature' I am deemed therefore be an adult by definition and it is my choice whether I go an see an 'Adult' movie.... there is NO distinction in RL, why SL?

Verification will NOT prevent minors already on the Main grid.. it just means that in addition to using their parents CC details, they now have to find a SS/NI number... wow.. that will be hard!

Parential controls built into the Client giving the responsibility to the right people The Parents... it's the same concept as internet browsers simply because no organisation can prevent minors coming into contact with Mature content via the internet.. it can ONLY be done at source.

I wonder...

SL threw out verification (via CC) allowing there membership numbers to go thru the roof (albeit mean thru alts)..

Corporate America moves in, seeing an opportunity for exposure with so many "members", often without really researching and knowing what SL is all about (just seeing the numbers)...

Oopsy..now there is potential for really damaging publicity via graphic adult content..which of course..can't be eliminated for severaly salient reasons. But..suppose some child gets in trouble on SL and your company has a presence..that's a huge exposure.

So now SL has to backtrack..it's need to *show a substantial membership* has been met in order to bring these companies in...

Now has been mentioned previously, these enterprising kids will end up accessing these areas anyway...there are so many ways of getting around the requirements.

So I wonder....is this really to protect the kids? If so, why has it taken so long? why was any sort of verification dismissed until recently with the event of corporations starting to have a presence in SL?

Just wondering.

I writed an email for the lindens, and i can not get any answer? how can i prove my age from eastern europe? Without passport or driver license. Im waiting (i and lot of another ppl ).
"2. Integrity will have the ability to easily verify IDs in 127 countries. The Lab is willing to assist residents in those countries which cannot easily gain verification."
Where can i find the list of the countries? And what can i do, if Hungary is not on that list?

Heres why LL is being so quick to switch to age verification.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6638331.stm


Second Life 'child abuse' claim

Second Life is being investigated by German police following allegations that some members are trading child abuse images in the online world.

The investigation follows a report by a German TV news programme which uncovered the trading group and members who pay for sex with virtual children.

The police are now trying to identify the Second Life members involved.

Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, said it would help identify users and pass on details to prosecutors.

Jail term

Second Life, as its name implies, is a virtual world in which members create an avatar and then use that character to live out a separate existence.

The investigation was carried out by Nick Schader from the Report Mainz news programme who is also a member of Second Life.

Mr Schader was asked to pay to attend meetings where virtual and real child pornography was being shown.

Members of this group also offered to put him in touch with traders of real child pornography.

The investigation also uncovered so called "age play" groups that revolve around the abuse of virtual children.

Information gathered during the report was passed to the prosecutor's office in Halle who said it hoped to track down the German Second Life user who shared the images of virtual child pornography.

Peter Vogt, the prosecutor in the Halle, told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur agency: "I assume we are going to catch this user fairly quickly."

Under Germany law possession of "virtual" child pornography is punishable by up to three years in jail.

/ Guys, It's not to protect the kids, it's to attach a real life name and face to each avatar so if you break a law in-game you can get arrested out-of-game.

First off, you haven't explained what you meant when you compared playing a video game to having a roof over your head.
I was responding to someone who accused LL of forcing them to do this, which just isn't true. You responded to me with this way-out, hyperbolic snipe.
If you don't get verified, you don't have to. You just can't go into certain parcels marked "Adult". That's it. There is nothing else to it. Linden Labs is not forcing anyone to verify. They're not forcing anyone to do anything.

Secondly, you really believe it's going to be as cut and dry, black and white as that? It's all or nothing?

I strongly disagree. I think some people will verify and some won't. I think that we'll probably see fewer giant cocks and really bad porn posters around, but I don't think it will completely go away.
I've found, through experience, that this will be just another hiccough in the SL experience and will probably affect it just as much as putting "Payment info on account" into our profiles did. A whole load of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Some will get het up, others will just verify or not, but in the end, there's gonna be some places marked Adult and the rest of the grid.

I have a feeling that this huge issue will just become yet another thing that gets accepted.

You have answerd your questions yourself. It isn't about the kids, or even us for that matter. It is about Them.

I wondered if the so called 'age play' thing wasn't a part of all this. From what I understand, there was a cry to put a stop to that nasty little business before I arrived. And I wondered why LL allowed it to exist. Hell, I almost left SL because it existed. But then, I started hearing things that lead me to believe that it would indeed come to an end; rumors that Rueters and other news agencies were looking into it, hearing that there were residents calling for LL to put a stop to it....and I figured it was on it's way out soon enough.

Now I find out that LL wants me to associate my RL identity with SL. Thus also associating my RL with an online place that allowed that activity to go on unabated before I even got here, and thus putting me in with the pedophiles in the eyes of some folks who don't know the whole story, have just heard the rumors.

Nice piece of work that is.

So, we are being asked to associate our RL with SL and risk identity theft, why?

If it's to keep minors out, then there would be no need to also have both Mature and Adult ratings. Presumably we would all be adults and are capable of choosing to stay in PG land if we wish not to have our delicate sensibilities exposed to cartoon nudity or violence.

The whole thing stinks like rotten fish.

I'm sure someone else asked this, but...

If you DONT verify your age, and your land is Mature (adult content or not), doesnt this mean you'd be banned from your own land??